Books and Wrestling II: Wrestle Harder.

Time for another update methinks.

Firstly, in the last blog update I said I intended to read more this year. Since then, I have completed a whopping total of three whole books! Go me. I finished The Man Who Never Was (see the last update) and then read The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby. It's a collection of columns about reading from The Believer magazine. It's easy to read and funny and helpfully contains samples of several of the books he discusses. He's also not allowed to say anything bad about the books he reads, so it's refreshing to read some upbeat and constructive criticism.

I then moved on to The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson, which cost me the huge sum of thirty-pence from the Library surplus stock. It's a great book; the style is distinctive yet simple to read. There is a blurb from Stanley Kubrick on the cover which says that the book is, “Probably the most chilling and believable first-person story of a criminally warped mind I have ever encountered,” and while I'm more than happy to agree with that (though how much I know about the 'believability of the book is open to debate >_>.) The characters are well drawn and the dialogue flows and it just feels like such a good account of the psychology of a criminal. I'd recommend it at any price, especially so for 30p.

I have several books which I might read next, including Boxer, Beetle by Ned Beauman and Eleven Kinds of Loneliness by Richard Yates (brought after watching Revolutionary Road, an excellent movie adaptation of a Yates book of the same name – and another book that I also want to read.) I also have How to Be Good by Nick Hornby (brought while reading Spree) and a free copy of Cloud Atlas by David Mitchell, received as a free book on World Book Night.

Finally, a colleague leant me a non-fiction science book about Chimpanzees. Not the sort of book I'd pick up by myself, ever, but I'll give it a go at some point. I'm concerned though, because the colleague in question lent me the book because I said I'd never cried at a book and she said that this book was guaranteed to make me cry. So, to recap, she lent it to me because it's going to make me upset, not because she expects me to really enjoy it. See why I'm a little dubious?

Anyway, to keep a little tally (for my own sanity as much as anything else), Books Read 2011:

1. Horus Rising by Dan Abnett

2. Confessions of a Conjuror by Derren Brown

3. The Man Who Never Was by Ewan Montagu

4. The Complete Polysyllabic Spree by Nick Hornby

5. The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson

I went to an excellent gig on Tuesday night; a German metal band called Accept supported by a Swedish band, Wolf. Wolf were a great support band and have some tracks I really like; including All Hail Ceasar, Voodoo and Whisky Psycho Hellions. Though if Wolf were good (and they were) then Accept were incredible. They're supremely talented across the board and every member of the band gave an almost faultless performance. Overall, it was one of the best gig's I've been too.

Since my last blog update, I've watched more and more and more and more and more and wrestling – or more (and more and more etc etc) Puro to be precise. I haven't watched any 'western' wrestling at all (though I do have some Best of Johnny Saint's to be working through). I've watched too much Japanese wrestling over the past few weeks to comment on everything; so I'll comment on the stuff I've really enjoyed.

Firstly, AJPW Triple Crown: Suwama (c) vs. Masakatsu Funaki (October 24, 2010)

I know next to nothing about current day AJPW. In fact, I've barely seen any AJPW, period.
I knew OF Suwama and Funaki but I had to wiki them to get any real sense of who they were. The point stands - I know nothing about AJPW. And I really, really, REALLY enjoyed this. Funaki working the leg of Suwama was precise and logical and well built; and they managed to trade big moves and strikes at the end without going into 'over-kill.' It was never WHITE HOT great, but the crowd were hot and overall the match was a fine balance of power and strikes and logical submissions that made it feel like a 'fight.' Proper big title defence feel to it, and a certain 2010 MOTY contender.

And from NOAH: Yoshihiro Takayama vs. KENTA, January 15th 2011
Until this, it'd been about two years since I watched any NOAH and, and loved this. They just gleefully slap (and kick) the shit out of each other, and work a precise and energetic sprint. The match contains some brutal strikes and a good flow.

And from DDT: KO-D Openweight Title: Daisuke Sekimoto vs. HARASHIMA (July 25^th 2010)

I enjoyed this, from what bits I've seen of Sekimoto (this and his CHIKARA matches) he seems to be a good power-worker with a lot of potential. Another long title match and this has a nice 'big' match feel; and they kept the interest levels up throughout. I didn't always buy Sekimoto not murdering HARASHIMA with his power in some places, but more often than not the action was believable and both men delivered. Good stuff.

Those were but three of the millions* of matches I've watched since the last blog update – I've been watching lots of NJPW (as ever) and KENTA vs. Takayama got me looking into more NOAH and I've got tonnes more to be working through.

On a final note – and to stick with wrestling – I've only just discovered Zack Ryder's Youtube show, Z! True Long Island Story. It's creative and hilarious in places and is pitch perfect for the character. I happened across episodes five and six and watched them first – they're a good a place as any to start and they contain a couple of jokes which run over from episode five into six. Well worth checking out.

And, that'll be all. Still trying to think of s good sign-off line. Ciao for now!

* Approximate estimate.

Books and Wrestling.

I figured it was finally time I updated the blog; being as I haven't since the snow came and did a remarkable job of grinding life to a halt. Part of the reason for the lack of updates is in waiting for a subject to come along and strike me, but I'm still waiting for that. Instead, I'm going to ramble on about little bits and pieces related to books and wrestling. Hence the title.

Firstly, I wanted to read more this year. I'm always reading something, but the list of books I've completed always feels inadequately low. This is down to a number of reasons. Firstly, I'm a very slow reader. An amount of prose someone may read in ten minutes may take me twenty-five; and I'm loathe to skim-read in case I miss something important, or even a well constructed line or neat simile. A typical 85,000 – 100,000 word paper-back might take me a month to complete as a result. Secondly, I'm always starting books and never finishing them. If I start five books, I'll finish one or two. I like to think this means that when I do complete a book, it means it was a good, worthwhile read that must have really struck a chord with me. It probably means I'm lazy and have a low attention span. Thirdly, I like to take 'breaks' in between reading novels or non-fiction to read short stories.

Anyway, I set myself a goal to read sixteen to eighteen books (that's novels or non-fiction books, not including short story collections/essays/joke books etc) this year. So far I'm on two and a half. Not bad going. I'll be recording books I finish (NOT simply start) in this blog. So far in 2011 I have completed;

- Horus Rising by Dan Abnett

- Confessions of a Con juror by Derren Brown (I wrote a review of this here)

I'm currently reading The Man Who Never Was (link provided because explaining it could take all night) and I know I'm going to finish this one! It is the true story of 'Operation Mincemeat', a truly ingenious piece of allied counter-intelligence during WW2.

On the subject of books, the pile I have to read is ever growing. I have a 'to read' pile by the bed already, and this pile has grown a lot today. I went to the library and picked up 'The Complete Polysyllabic Spree' by Nick Hornby and LA Confidential by James Ellroy; the challenge will be on to read them by the due date, but if I like 'em I can always renew them. As I was getting those, I noticed the shelf where they library sells off old stock and I brought two books from there, both in surprisingly good condition. I got The Killer Inside Me by Jim Thompson (book infinitely better than the film I hear) and – I hardback no less – Double Eagle by Dan Abnett; both for a combined fee of a whopping eighty pence!

This, in the same week that mum brought a Kindle, and thus thousands of classics are now at my finger-tips for free. I have enough reading material to last me several years I think.

Finally, on the subject of books, has anyone been watching 'My Life in Books' on BBC2? (Probably a rhetorical question, I know) It's been airing weekdays at 18:30, and will for the rest of the week. It's a show where Anne Robinson interviews various known people about their favourite reads from various points in their life. If anything it feels far too short, but this just demonstrates what an interesting, compact little show it is. You should be able to watch the series so far on iPlayer. Guests so far have included Sir Trevor McDonald, Rebecca Front, Richard Bacon, P.D James, Clare Balding, Peter and Dan Snow, Sister Wendy, Lawrence Llewelyn-Bowen, Jeanette Winterson and Alastair Campbell among others.

Anyway, onto wrestling. I haven't checked out any puro for ages, so aside from reading results from the last few months, I've ordered a copy of the big NJPW show from early January, found some other matches to watch later, and today I watched a few matches from the NJPW/CMLL joint shows held at the end of January. From the first show I watched the main event, a good but far too short six man tag match, piting Hiroshi Tanahashi, Prince Devitt and Mistico against Shinsuke Nakamura, Tetsuya Naito and Averno. From the second show, I've watched the Mistico vs. Averno 2/3 falls match – good but nothing stellar; and the excellent match for the IWGP Jr. Heavyweight Tag Team Championhips – Apollo 55 vs. Golden Lovers (that's Prince Devitt & Ryusuke Taguchi vs. Kota Ibushi & Kenny Omega.) Only complaint is that, like the aforementioned six-man tag, it was far too short.

I really haven't watched much wrestling for months, beyond the Royal Rumble, so it felt good to finally watch some more. Looking forward to some big events coming up, like CHIKARA's King of Trios, and this little-known show called Wrestlemania...

That's enough for now, though I'm already working on another post about this summers' music festivals. Won't leave it so long next-time.

Ciao for now!

(I really need a better sign-off phrase.)

Tree goes up...

Put the Christmas tree up while listening to Slipknot. Nothing says 'Christmas' quite like 'Psychosocial', does it?

Too Soon?

So, it just keeps snowing and snowing and the clouds appear to provide no end in sight. Is it too soon to start using the word 'Apocalypse'?

Mega Snow Day!

Huge amounts of snow fall has meant that for the first time ever I've got a bonus day off work. As such, I decided to do something productive with it (made easier being as the postman can't get through with my latest films off Lovefilm or the books I ordered off Amazon), and finally writing a blog falls into that lovely grey area between actually being productive and not.

I think I'm right in saying that the last twenty-four hours or so has seen as much snow-fall as I've ever seen in my lifetime, although some people on the street are taking about the great snow fall of '84 or some such year. It snowed a lot last year, but not in such a short space of time. In places where the snow has drifted up onto the verges of people's gardens, the snow is knee deep (and I'm around 6'1”/6'2”), though the general height of the fall comes to the middle of my shin, to use a technical term for measurement.

Here is Dad struggling in the snow (watching him was funnier than helping him):

And here are some more pictures of the snow outside:

Me and Dad took a trip to the super-market. Lots of people panic buying bread and milk, but we refused to be drawn into such madness. I was a numpty and forgot to take the camera with me, and as such missed lots of nice views in Greenhill Village and Graves Park, and the sight of Meadowhead Roundabout with no traffic.

It was a long trek, which took about thirty minutes longer than it should have due to the conditions, and to us taking a different route back – which lead to lots of us struggling for footing on uneven ground; but we at last returned triumphantly from our arduous journey with supplies of bread, milk and Magnum ice creams. It's always ice cream weather.

And now, I *will* actually begin work on something actually productive, as easy as it'd be to spend the day on Football Manager 11.

I'll leave with a quick shill, for the one person that'll have read this. In case you haven't been doing so already, check out Fake-Geeks, a website I set-up and review for and occasionally a chap called Gaz posts stuff too. I recently reviewed two new cinema releases, Unstoppable and Machete, but there's other musings posted on there too.

Have fun with your day, and bye for now.